


Somewhere, Something

by Stargirl_And_Potts (A_Candle_For_Sherlock)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Angst, Multiple Sclerosis, New Relationship, Panic Attacks, Post-War, Sickfic, but they're pretty good at it actually, still learning how to take care of each other, they love each other a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/Stargirl_And_Potts
Summary: "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." Carl SaganNewt and Hermann start dating in the rush of change the end of war brings. Each of them is frightened that the other doesn't realize what he's in for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarah1281](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/gifts), [butdoyouyearn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/butdoyouyearn/gifts).



> This takes place after the first Pacific Rim movie. You can assume a happy ending for them and forget about Uprising, or if you're a huge fan of angst, you can imagine the events of Uprising to follow this.

Third dates were meant to be–-something. Something serious. He's sure he’s heard something about third dates. Hermann would know. Hermann knows about things like etiquette and social norms. He doesn’t; that's well established. He’s missed out on a lot, he knows that; skipping the whole teenage socialization thing in favor of getting his first two degrees. A mistake, from a social point of view, probably. Along with everything else he’s done. Can’t wholly blame his overactive brain, though, his need to skip the niceties hiding the heart of things, push past the rules and get to realities. Hermann is just as smart, just as determined, and he does just fine with things like rules and hierarchies and decency and _dates_ –-

Oh, God. “Am I tuning you out? I’m so sorry, I’m tuning you out. I’m fixating.” He shakes his head through his clearing vision; blinks at Hermann. Hermann takes a long sip of his ginger beer and raises an eyebrow. His plate is empty.

“Are you? I hadn’t noticed.”

The deadpan delivery is dangerous. It could mean sarcasm. It could mean indulgence. It could mean that he genuinely hasn’t noticed–-that he hasn’t been paying Newt any attention at all–-Oh, _God,_ is he already _bored_ with him?–-

“Newton, are you panicking?” Hermann is leaning forward, setting his soda aside, reaching out. A hand across the table. Newt gulps and reaches back, cursing the sudden shakiness in his fingers, taking a sharp breath at the cool firm grip that meets his. 

“Panicking, yeah. A little,” he says, when Hermann says nothing else, does nothing, only looks at him. The noise of the restaurant around them is loud and getting louder, an intrusion on whatever is in that look, and he is trying hard to understand. What does Hermann see in him?

“Stop it,” Hermann says, and smiles, unexpectedly, at what Newt knows must be obvious, his sudden anger. _Stop worrying. Stop being ridiculous, it’s easy. Anyone can do it. Anyone normal._ “Don’t be insulted, Newton, I’m not dismissing you. Advice, or assistance?”

“What?” Newt manages, clinging to the hand still holding his, and trying not to fling it away and get up in a rage, because he’ll hate himself for it. Hermann doesn’t mean any harm.

“Do you want advice, or assistance with your anxiety? Or shall I leave you alone to collect yourself?”

“How could you help? It’s my broken brain. My problem,” Newt ekes out, around the rising tension in his throat. 

“Hm,” says Hermann, and then, “May I come over there?”

He actually waits for Newt’s nod before he releases his hand and begins to slide sideways out of the booth. It’s one of his shaky days; he holds onto the table with both hands and pushes himself slowly, grimacing. Newt has time to struggle through several more increasingly painful breaths before he’s gotten himself upright and over to Newt’s side.

“Move, please,” he says. Newt scoots over. Hermann sits beside him.

“Does heat help?” he says. “A blanket, a shower?” When Newt shrugs, “It doesn’t? Or you don’t know?”

“I don’t know,” Newt whispers. “Usually I just go back to the lab.”

“To distract yourself? Ah. Is that preferable, or might you benefit from some other method of mental restoration?”

“I don’t know,” Newt says again, which isn’t what he means to say. He means to say, _I am being ridiculous. Why are you taking me seriously?_ He means to say _, Of course this isn’t preferable, I am thirty-five years old and I’m barely better at stopping a spiral than I was at fifteen._ He means to say, _Fuck off_. 

“I find heat helps,” Hermann says, and then, “Wait here.” He’s up and walking away.

Newt is left shaking in the booth, wondering why he’s let it get this far. Wondering why he hasn’t just gone home. How could he think a _dating relationship_ would work with someone who wanted to take him out, to take it _slow?_ How could he let himself embarrass himself in the one way he hadn’t yet with Hermann–Hermann, who has let the win go to his head, apparently, and has _taken him out_ three nights in a row for no apparent reason? Who’s looking at him like something’s changed, somehow? Like he sees something different than he has in the last five years of furious antipathy at horribly close quarters–like he’s somehow forgotten in the wake of the war’s end that Newton is never going to be the kind of person he can live with–like they haven’t proven that over and over–

“Here,” says Hermann’s voice, and his freezing, trembling hand is taken, gently, and a mug of something hot is pushed into it, while Hermann slides in awkwardly again to sit beside him. Close beside him. “Coffee. Decaffeinated. Hazelnut, with cream. Will that do?”

It’s perfect. He drinks it slowly. The haze in his brain clears a little, enough that he notices Hermann’s hand resting on his knee. Stroking it slowly, absentmindedly. Hermann isn’t looking at him, just breathing, staring into space. 

“Thank you,” Newt manages, and then, “We can go now.”

“Hmm?” Hermann looks a little startled. “Where do you want to go?”

“Home,” Newt says. “I thought. I won’t be much fun anymore.” And then, when Hermann only looks at him, “The adrenaline kind of wipes me out. Can’t flirt with you that well while I’m a post-panic zombie.” The silence is getting to him. Hermann’s hand has gone still on his knee, but he’s not moving away. “I’ll take a taxi? You don’t have to get me there, if–-if you want to stay out. Sorry the date was a dud.”

“Do you want to go home?” Hermann says. Still deadpan. No way to tell if he’s mocking him. No way to tell anything at all.

“I want to not embarrass myself.” That much should be obvious. “Maybe not to embarrass you, either. If it’s not too much to ask. If I’m not doing that all the time, anyway. Isn’t it a little masochistic, being out with me? What’s in it for you?”

“Your company?” Finally some expression. Incredulity. Sincerity. “I just want your company, Newton. You needn’t entertain me. You can go if you like, but I hope you won’t hide from me when you aren’t at your best, now that we’re–-we are-–”

“What are we?”

“Together, I hope.” The hand on Newt’s knee tightens suddenly, and then relaxes, with a shiver. “Or at the least, friends.”

“Flirting friends,” Newt says, shakily. “At least.”

“Dating friends.”

“Yeah.”

They look at each other. The restaurant laughs and clatters around them. The lights burn Newt’s eyes.

“If you want me to stick around, maybe–-maybe we could go outside,” he says, and then, “and I will try to stop. Performing. I’ll try. If you want me to just--be with you.”

“Excellent,” Hermann says, around the beginnings of a smile. He looks–-relieved. Happy? “I’ll just get the check, then.” He’s pushing himself up out of the seat, clinging white-knuckled to his cane. He sways slightly, steadies himself. “It’s warm out. We can walk a while. I’ll have to go slowly, but–-”

“We have time,” Newt says, dazed, watching him go. Hermann doesn’t hear him; he’s said it too softly. He says it again to himself, anyway. “We have time.”


	2. Chapter 2

Newt knocks on Hermann’s door with his elbow. His hands are too full: he bears a mega-sized bag of Snickers, a packet of Hermann’s favorite sesame seaweed crisps, and a giant panful of homemade Rice Krispie treats, the culmination of both their tastes in movie night snacking. Also, reluctantly, he's bringing the sweater he'd stolen from Hermann at the theater last week, since Hermann is demanding he return it, romance be damned.

Met with only silence from inside, he sighs and sets everything on the carpet at his feet to open the door for himself. Hermann's probably in his room, absorbed in some esoteric journal article about quantum entanglement. Or else he's in the bathroom, dithering over his hair. After six months' dating, he still gets flustered over how much Newt is into him. Newt had complimented his messy hair once after a windy walk, and now he's started tousling it up for him on purpose. It's ridiculously flattering.

Silence and darkness in the apartment. Newt switches on the living room lights, spreads out some afghans on the couch, starts the teapot heating. Not a sign of Hermann. It's getting worrying. Usually the first sounds of him doing anything in Hermann’s kitchen are enough to get Hermann out, following around tidying after him and making sure he's got the right mugs and the proper snack plates for their junk food.

The continued silence is unnerving. He's driven into the hall to check and there–-there's a light beneath the bedroom door. 

Hermann is a bundle on the bed, wrapped up in his electric blanket, blank-eyed and white-faced. He blinks at Newt.

“Ooooohhh,” says Newt, eloquently, and then, “Bad day, then?”

Hermann nods. 

The problem is, Newt isn’t used to being needed. But Hermann does need him, sometimes, and he doesn't want to fuck it up. The question is: What would Hermann do if he'd found Newt like this? “Sit by you?” 

“All right.” Hermann’s voice comes out dry and crackly; his mouth twitches like he's trying to smile at Newt and can't quite manage it. 

“Let me–-let me just turn off the stove.”

“Thanks-–for remembering.” That's an actual smile, small but real. Voice a little stronger.

He comes back with a cup of Hermann’s beloved white leaf oolong, and leaves it on the nightstand. Settles on the bed beside Hermann, watching the way he winces as the mattress dips down. Really bad day, then.

The delicate, essential, irreplaceable myelin sheaths of Hermann’s nerves are disintegrating slowly. He tremors; he loses his balance for no good reason. He loses track of a hand’s location in physical space, of the amount of tension needed to hold a piece of chalk, and drops it, and blushes dark and angry over it. Most days you wouldn't know he was sick, looking at him; you might think he was just clumsy. Other days are like this.

“Does it hurt?” Newt says, and hears the hesitation, the dry catch and release of Hermann’s breath.

“Very much.” Hermann's barely audible. _I find heat helps_ , Hermann had said on their third date, watching Newt shake and struggle to breathe through his rising fear.

“Are you panicking?” he says, maybe too suddenly, because Hermann jolts a little.

“Yes, of course,” he snaps. His hair lies damp over his forehead. He's not meeting Newt’s look. 

“It’ll stop soon,” Newt says, helpless with the desire to make that expression go away.

“No, it won’t, Newton. The pain will ebb and I will get up and go about my business, but the pain is not the problem. The disease is, and that will never go away.”

“I know–-”

“You don’t.” Hermann's dead white. “I will need an electric chair someday. I will need detailed assistance. I may forget things, lose my mental acuity.”

“I know,” Newt says again, because what does Hermann think, that he hasn’t been reading up on this? That he doesn’t know what they're in for? 

Hermann's closed his eyes tight. His lashes are wet.

 _It’s not about you,_ Newt tells himself. _It’s not about him thinking you’re unresearched, unprepared. It’s about him. He’s scared._

“I’ll be there,” Newt says carefully. “To remind you of things, when you forget. I swear I won’t tease you too much.”

Hermann’s beautiful eyes fly wide open, searching his.

“Can I kiss you?” 

Hermann shudders once, and nods. 

It's awkward. Hermann's still holding the blanket around himself, and doesn’t reach for Newt. At first Newt just perches beside him, leaning in, trying to kiss him gently through the tension. Then Hermann starts to soften, to kiss him back, so he scoots around behind Hermann and props himself up on the headboard, scoops Hermann and his blanket up and gets him laid back against his chest. He kisses Hermann upside down, soft upper lip, small lower lip, taking turns, feeling the weight of him settle slowly into his arms. Watching his face relax as he rests his head heavy over Newt’s heart.

When the quiet feels less frail, and more like the beginning of date night, Newt says, “I brought Rice Krispie treats.”

Later, on the living room sofa, curled warm and comfortable against the bundle of blankets that is Hermann, Newt says, "When did you start feeling sick? The first time?"

Hermann doesn't tense, or protest, but Newt holds still anyway, waiting for the answer. "I was twenty-two," Hermann says, finally. "I didn't realize. I thought it was just--stress, overwork. Phantom pains--psychosomatic. I used an under-the-counter SSRI, for a while, as a mood balancer. I was embarrassed."

"You were really young. Fourteen years ago."

"Hm." Hermann takes a sip of tea.

"So how fast did it go?"

"How fast will it go, you mean?" Hermann's looking down at him; the top of his head prickles with the feeling of being watched intently. "How many good years do I have?"

"That's not what I meant, but--sure."

"I don't know. It's been sporadic. Sometimes the hyperbaric treatments help, or the injections; sometimes some new symptom appears without explanation. I could degenerate quickly, or I could be like this for years."

"So in another fourteen years maybe nothing's changed, or maybe you're spotty on memory but fine with walking, or maybe I'm ortho-modding your electric chair and secretly adding light-up rims while I'm at it? There's no way to know how it'll go?"

There's a deep silence. Then, "Yes," says Hermann, and his tone is very odd. Warm, and soft, and surprised. "Yes, that's right."

"What did I say?" He pushes himself out from under Hermann's arm to look up. Hermann's eyes are very bright. He looks--amazed.

"You want to be here in fourteen years? With me?"

He's said that, hasn't he. He's kept himself under control, kept it patient, kept it slow, just like Hermann wants it. But he's known this would happen. It always happens--feelings flood him and finally overflow by accident, not that he's ever felt this much for anyone else--but--

But Hermann looks glad.

"Will you want me?" Newt says, in a bit of a squeak. But that's a coward's answer. Hermann's asked him first. "I'd like to be here, yeah."

Hermann is smiling at him. Pale, and exhausted, bundled in blankets and sweaters, slumped into the sofa, smiling.

"I'd like that too," he says, gently. "Newton. I'd like you to stay."

He doesn't say a word when Newt turns over and buries his face in Hermann's shoulder. He only sighs, and pulls him in closer.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Pacrim fic, written for two Tumblr prompts--@kaijuboob and @drsarah1281, thank you! You got me writing for a pair I've loved wholeheartedly. They deserve all the good in the world.


End file.
